


born lucky

by the_wraith



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Azula (Avatar) Needs a Hug, Gen, Heavy Angst, a look at why princess azula is the way she is, introspective, this is sad :(
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:48:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25533118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_wraith/pseuds/the_wraith
Summary: Azula brings her allies back. She is powerful, and she is going to rule the world. No foolish Earth Kingdom peasant will stand in her way. Neither will Ty Lee's frivolous circus or Mai's pathetic younger brother, and most certainly not the Avatar.Azula thinks about victory, standing in front of her mirror and practicing her smirk. "I am going to rule the world," she tells it. Her reflection grins, and she feels more powerful than anyone else could ever be.or: the rise and fall of the fire nation princess azula.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 35





	born lucky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fakecharliebrown](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fakecharliebrown/gifts).



Azula, daughter of Ozai and granddaughter of Azulon, is the best firebender in the world.

Azula is seven the first time she tells herself so, standing in front of her mirror in the middle of the night. Azula can't afford to be anything else but the bst. She must be better than Zuko, who Father tells is lucky to be born. She _is_ better. Azula repeats the words like a mantra every morning. She believes them, because she has to. Being scary is easier than being scared.

Azula doesn't think about her mother, who doesn't seem to care about how much better she is. She doesn't want to, because her mother was weak and somehow loved a failure more than her. Didn't her mother know that victory was the only way to succeed? That power was the only way to stay afloat? She asks stupid Zuko why Father even married her one afternoon, and she laughs in her cruelest voice when he can’t answer. Azula pretends she knows the answer, because she can never be the same as him.

She thinks about Zuko, though. Father calls him lucky to be born, and she agrees. He can't bend, can't rule, can't even get Father's approval for the smallest of things. Azula revels in the praise that's all for her, born lucky. She repeats her mantra to the mirror in the morning and twists her face to match the threatening look on Father's face when he yells at her. 

* * *

Azula gets sent off to the Royal Fire Academy for Girls when she turns seven. She won't know anyone there, since she's the Fire Nation Princess and doesn't fraternize with anyone lesser. No Father there, which she doesn't know how to feel about. No special compliments and no bending lessons. No yelling. No insults. No fire. 

She yells at the servant girl packing her bags, who is slow and clumsy and has spilled ink on the floor, face twisted up like Ozai. The girl cowers, looking as terrified as Azula feels, even as her fear melts to satisfaction. Princess Azula is never scared.

Once she arrives, it's even easier to be terrifying. There. she's not the girl who would burn flowers and get sent to her room by a spineless mother. She's Princess Azula, with a smirk and a biting comment and hands full of flame. All the girls who pretend to love her look at her like they know she's better, and she knows she could never fail like this. 

Fire Nation Princess Azula, namesake of the Fire Lord, makes allies. Azula makes friends, or sort of. Ty Lee trusts her unconditionally, and she praises Azula without the backhanded sharpness of the adults at court. Mai does neither, but something about the way she pretends not to care makes Azula want to keep her around.

They pull themselves through the slog of etiquette and history. Azula stalks off to her fire bending lessons, reassured by her individuality. Her pure talent, blazing from her fingertips and coiling in her veins. So what if Ty Lee can do a somersault? (She is the best, better than her brother and her mother. She is the pride of her father.)

Azula listens at doors, watches expressions change in the blink of an eye, and stays aware. She drinks up people's fear, of her and of Father and of their power and their glory. Father tells her she's lucky, she's talented, she's glorious. He lets her into the world of politics Zuko's been locked out of, and she knows she's achieved something.

* * *

Her weak, useless mother, who has never loved her, leaves. She knows what’s happened— Azula has been listening at doors for years now. She tells Zuko about what’s going to happen and laughs and laughs, because her brother and her mother will all be gone. It will be her, the heir to the throne, and Father, who loves her. The reign of Fire Lord Ozai will mean she will be more powerful than the world could ever expect.

The raw fear in Zuko’s eyes set something thrumming in her veins. She feels like her father, powerful and imposing. She did that, Azula thinks. That was all her.

Alone in her room, she lets herself be a little scared. “I am Princess Azula, and I am going to be the best Fire Lord the world has ever seen,” she whispers. The reflection in the mirror looks like her mother, and she drapes a sheet over it before she sleeps. 

* * *

Azula keeps getting better. Zuko keeps acting like their mother. Father yells and rages, but he teaches her how to rule the world. "Look here, Azula," he'll tell her. "This could all be ours." She looks out onto the expanse of territory that could become hers, and lets herself imagine a throne and a crown on her head, not his.

When Zuko gets banished, she’s happy. Azula is also deeply, completely terrified that she’ll step out of line and there’ll be a burn across half of her face. She hadn't minded that policy, she reassures herself. She would never be so weak to think that footsoldiers weren't expendable. Princess Azula was not weak.

Azula schemes. Without stupid Zuko around, Father will focus all of his attention on her. She’s the heir, the pride of the family. Princess Azula is powerful beyond measure now, with no softhearted brothers to muck things up. She could never be like him.

In the middle of the night, when she knows Father's asleep, Azula thinks about how Zuko taught her to throw a punch when she was two and he was four, how to curl her fingers and leave her thumb on the outisde. Then she shoves the memory down into a mental box she swears never to open, and Azula decides she never loved him.

* * *

Azula brings her allies back. She is powerful, and she is going to rule the world. No foolish Earth Kingdom peasant will stand in her way. Neither will Ty Lee's frivolous circus or Mai's pathetic younger brother, and most certainly not the Avatar. 

Azula thinks about victory, standing in front of her mirror and practicing her smirk. "I am going to rule the world," she tells it. Her reflection grins, and she feels more powerful than anyone else could ever be.

Peasants and nobles flinch when she stares at them too long. Nobody dares disrespect her. She _is_ powerful, Azula realizes, more than Zuko could dream of. She is her father's daughter.

She takes Ba Sing Se. She brings Zuko home. She destroys the Avatar. Princess Azula is the golden child, the apple of her father's eye, the terrifying daughter with the blue fire. Zuko is nothing compared to her. Everyone is nothing.

* * *

Azula leaves the Boiling Rock having miscalculated, alone and powerless and suddenly unsure of everything she’s ever known. Mai doesn't fear her, doesn't love her. She loves Zuko, though, her useless, spineless brother. Ty Lee doesn't love her. She loves Mai, though, who loves Zuko, and all of them are friends and they trust each other, and not her. She is alone.

She returns to the palace and she sobs when no one watches, just for a moment. Then she decides that the whole world will just have to burn before she rules it. And she will, Azula decides. She will be the Fire Lord.

* * *

Azula sees her mother in the mirror. "I love you," she says. Azula sends her hairbrush, which her mother used to brush her hair with, spiraling into the mirror. She tries not to cry. She thinks about how close she is to being what Ozai wants of her, of how close she is to ruling the world and being the most powerful person in the whole world, and she thinks of her mother.

By the time Zuko shows up to ruin her coronation, she has made up her mind. It doesn't matter that her mother doesn't love her and her friends don't love her and her brother doesn't love her, because Father loves her enough to give her the Fire Nation. Even if he's left her behind while he burns the world down, he loves her. She has to believe that. Otherwise she is nothing, nothing but the monster her mother believed her to be, unbearable and cruel. 

Azula throws her lightning at Zuko's suggestion. She wants to burn the whole world down. She wants someone to dive in front of her to spare her from a bolt of lightning. She doesn't know.

* * *

Azula screams. She doesn’t know what else to do, when her mind is so full of her mother and her father and just how badly she’s failed. Father will kill her. No banishment or quiet disappearance for her, but a loud, fiery end. Zuko will watch her and laugh in the audience. He will feast on the fear in her eyes and tear every bit of her to shreds. 

She will be worthless. Useless. Gone. 

Her blue flames, the mark of her talent and Ozai’s pride, claw at her throat as they spill from her mouth. It feels raw and scratchy, like she’s swallowed embers. She keeps screaming. Azula feels another wave of terrified adrenaline and pulls at her chains. It doesn’t matter. She’s already dead. 

She sees her mother, but she can't make her go away. Azula imagines the way Ozai will burn her alive and feels tears mix with her blue fire. She was born lucky. She is dead. 

* * *

The battle ends. She ends with it, Princess Azula and Fire Lord, conqueror of Ba Sing Se. Azula is no one now. There is no one left to love her.

The Avatar and her brother put her in some mental facility. She lets them. What does it matter, she wants to tell them. She's already dead.

The walls of her room are slate grey, fire resistant. It's empty, except for a cot and a small table where she sits and thinks. There are no sharp things in her room, no mirrors and no knives. She cannot fight. She cannot be a threat.

The first week of her imprisonment, Azula watches the door for visitors. Nobody comes, and Azula knows she shouldn't feel surprised. She is no one now, with no mother to brush her hair, no brother to teach her to throw a punch, no Ty Lee and no Mai to play Blind Man's Bluff with in the Academy courtyard. She's driven them all away, and now she is no one.

She rages at the walls, and the nervous staff stop coming by to see her. Azula takes comfort in it. She can still be scary.

Her mother talks to her in the night, tells her how sorry she is and that she loves her daughter. Ozai talks to her too, tells her he's ashamed she's failed in this way, that she must fight stronger and harder lest she end up like Zuko. He tells her he will banish her, because she's ended up worse than him.

Azula doesn't know who it hurts more to listen to.

* * *

The days blur together. She spends her nights barely sleeping, haunted by her mother on the good nights. The bad nights, she sees the Earth Kingdom people she destroyed the lives of, scores of people she doesn’t have names for. She sees Mai and Ty Lee. She sees Zuko, the Avatar, the Water Tribe girl she tried to shoot full of lightning. Those nights, she wakes up screaming, too terrified to breathe.

"Look what you did," they tell her. "You ruined us. For what?"

She doesn't know what she did it for anymore. She did it for herself, Azula thinks. She has done enough monstrous things to make herself a monster. She enjoyed them all.

She did it for Father, Azula thinks, but Father is gone. He would kill her if he saw her, for failing so badly his worthless son could take the throne. She can see the sparks of an Agni Kai she could never win, and the way they will set her alight. She doesn't know if anyone would miss her, Azula the unloved, Azula the mad.

Azula looks at the walls of her prison, and realizes that Ozai was wrong. She was never lucky.

* * *

It all stays the same. She spends her waking hours pacing, thinking. Azula sets fire to the walls and watches her flames die away. She doesn't speak to the mild-mannered staff that are supposed to help her heal. "I am too broken," Azula wants to tell them. "I have done too much wrong."

She spends her nights screaming. Her ghosts haunt her and her mother tells her she loves her, and her father's fire destroys it all. The worst days, Zuko crumples in front of her, shot through the heart with her lightning. He doesn't wake up.

Azula realizes, after the third night where he dies and she is left behind, that she loves him, even if he does not love her. Her brother, softhearted and spineless and everything her father hated, who was Fire Lord. Her brother who her mother loved. Azula couldn't blame her for it anymore. Zuko deserved to be loved. He was no monster.

"You are nothing. Unlucky, unloved, a failure," the walls tell her. She sets fire to them again.

* * *

It all stays the same. It doesn't.

Zuko comes to visit.

Azula doesn't know what to say. She is not the princess who shot him with lightning, but she is not the little girl who he used to like being around. The Azula of now is nothing but an empty shell, her father's words drained out of her but nothing left to fill her back up.

"You ruined me," she wants to tell Zuko. "I love you. I hate you." Instead, she looks at him. He's wearing the crown she spent years coveting, that she still desperately wants. He looks tired.

"I'm sorry," she tells him. It's not enough, Azula knows.

Zuko smiles at her, a real smile. "Me too."

Azula thinks she might be lucky after all.

**Author's Note:**

> this is dedicated to my good friend -- - ; because its their bday and i love them <3
> 
> i hope you all liked it!! sorry its so sad


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